The Australian Women's Register

In 1921 at Melbourne’s Theatre Royal, Gladys Moncrieff performed the role of Teresa in Maid of the Mountains to great popular acclaim. After travelling through America and Europe for further training, she returned to Australia to play the title role in Rio Rita. Moncrieff made numerous popular recordings and sang on radio. She was featured on the Macquarie broadcasting network in the ‘Gladys Moncrieff Show’.

Mildred Muscio’s association with the New South Wales National Council of Women began in 1922. She became press secretary of the Council before serving as president from 1927-38, including a term as federal president.

Grace Cossington Smith had her first solo exhibition in 1928, and her work was reproduced in Art in Australia. She painted landscapes, streetscapes, and native flowers as well as interior paintings. Between 1932 and 1977, she held eighteen solo exhibitions, and in 1973 the Art Gallery of New South Wales held a retrospective exhibition of her work.

After a short teaching career, Christina Stead travelled to Paris for study, then to London. She returned to Australia in 1969 after many years abroad to take up a fellowship at the Australian National University. In 1974 she returned to live in Australia permanently.

Jean Cullen was an illustrator and humorous artist who worked for Smith’s Weekly in the period 1941-1950. She also created the teenage cartoon character ‘Pam’ for the Brisbane Courier Mail , a character that Marie Horseman continued to develop after Cullen took her own life in 1950.

In 1945, Cullen published an adult illustrated book that was quickly banned called Hold that Halo, or, How to lose it in ten easy lessons. The comic narrated the trials and tribulations of a young woman during the second word war and was a stark commentary on the sexual double-standard as it applied to women.

Betty Paterson and her sister Esther were prodigies born into the elite of Melbourne’s bohemian set. Father (Hugh) and uncle (John Ford) were both artists and her first playmates were her neighbours, the children of Frederick McCubbin.

Art impinged upon every facet of her life throughout its entire course. Her Art Deco cartoons were published regularly in magazines such as The Bulletin and Aussie. Her illustrated interpretations of ‘permissive’ 1920s society resonated with those she depicted – she became artist-by-appointment to the flappers.

Betty Paterson married twice, and had one child, a daughter, Barbara.

Misha Schubert’s career in journalism began in 1998 at the Australian as a general news reporter, going on to become its Victorian political reporter. In 2001-02 she moved to New York, acquiring a masters degree from Columbia University’s journalism school to complement her BA from RMIT. She moved to Canberra in 2002 where she covered indigenous affairs and health for two years before joining The Age as a federal political correspondent. On parliamentary sitting days, she writes a political gossip column, House on the Hill. She is also a regular panellist on ABC television’s Insiders program.

Misha has also developed a profile in the community sector. She was a founding chairperson of Girlstorey, a drop-in centre for young women in Melbourne, and is a life member and former president of YWCA Victoria. She was a republican delegate at the 1998 Constitutional Convention in Canberra.

From September 2012 until August 2015 Misha was the Director of Communications for Recognise, the movement to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our Constitution. In September 2015, Misha took up the position of Director of Strategic Communications for Universities Australia.

Shirley Stott Despoja was the first woman to be employed in the general news room at the Adelaide Advertiser. She was that paper’s first ever Arts Editor, appointed at a time when the arts were of enormous political and economic significance in South Australia. She brought the arts to the front pages of the newspaper in a manner that had not been achieved before.

In 2010, Shirley Stott Despoja was the inaugural winner of the Mary MacKillop Award at the twentieth annual Catholic Archbishop’s Media Citations. She was nominated for her regular column, The Third Age, published in The Adelaide Review.

According to Archbishop Wilson who presented the award, it was a pleasure to honour such an esteemed writer and champion of equality and social justice.

“Mary MacKillop herself was a great correspondent and also challenged the social norms of the day,” he said.

“Ms Stott Despoja’s efforts to break the stereotypes of ageing and challenge her peers to be feisty and opinionated would undoubtedly be applauded by Mary.”

Stott Despoja also won a United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Award in 2010 for the same column, for excellence in the promotion of positive images of the older person.

Shirley Stott Despoja was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the May 2013 South Australian Media Awards, honoured by her peers for an outstanding contribution to the South Australian media. In 2017 she was awarded on Australia Day with an OAM, ‘for services as a journalist to print media’, a citation to bury the lede, if ever there was one. In November 2018 she was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame.

Shirley Stott Despoja is variously described as ‘an inspiration’, ‘a pioneer’, ‘gutsy’, ‘an arts editor who changed the city’ (Adelaide) and ‘a great lady of a great age of print’. But above all, Stott Despoja is best known as a journalist for being ‘principled’.

Barbara Blackman was an author, music-lover, essayist, librettist, letter writer and patron of the Arts. Former wife of Charles Blackman, she worked for many years as an artist’s model. She conducted countless interviews for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. In 2006, Blackman was presented with the Australian Contemporary Music 2006 Award for Patronage.

Phyllis Gibb was the first teacher at the School of the Air in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Tess Alfonsi was the first woman miner in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Internationally acclaimed soprano opera singer June Bronhill chose her stage name in recognition of her birthplace, Broken Hill.

Katie Maxwell arrived in Broken Hill, New South Wales, in 1961. She is the owner of a small business, Irene’s South Drapery, and was named Broken Hill Businesswoman of the Year in 2003. Katie is an active member of the Australian Red Cross and the Broken Hill Migrant Heritage Committee.

Maria Petkovich arrived in Broken Hill, New South Wales, in 1961. With her husband, Petar, she owns and runs South Dry Cleaners and Wilson’s Dry Cleaners in Broken Hill, New South Wales. Maria is a volunteer with the Australian Red Cross.

Barbara De Franceschi was awarded the OAM for services to the Broken Hill migrant community. She has two published poetry anthologies.

Nydia Edes was the first female Alderman on the Broken Hill City Council and a recipient of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal who worked tirelessly throughout her life for the improvement of women’s conditions.

Described as ‘a tall, angular, brusque, energetic woman, prone to bad language’. Lilian Cooper completed her medical training, despite opposition from her parents, at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1890. She travelled to Australia in 1891, settling in Brisbane, Queensland, where she became the first female doctor registered in Queensland. Some years later, she travelled back to Europe, via the United States. She received a doctorate of medicine from the University of Durham in June 1912.

Cooper settled again in Brisbane after the end of the Great War and established a large and successful practice. In 1926 she bought a house called Old St Mary’s in Main Street, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane and settled there in semi-retirement, becoming a foundation fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1928. She retired in 1941 and died in her home on 18 August 1947.

Lusitania Browne, born in Portugal, married Dr Solomon Caspersonn in 1846. They moved to Australia and lived in Brighton, Victoria, between 1850-1857. The family moved to Albury 1857. Lusitania became a pharmacist and was quite possibly the second woman to work as one in New South Wales.

Sister Mary Ita was one of the first six nuns to form the Sisters of Mercy at Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Beryl Carmichael was an elder of the Ngiyaempaa people and served on the National Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council, the Western Lands Advisory Council, and the New South Wales Reconciliation Council. She lived in Menindee in far western New South Wales.

Local historian Christine Adams was born and raised in Broken Hill, New South Wales. After living in South Australia and Queensland, she returned to Broken Hill with her husband Paul in 2003.

Heather Powell was the first female union secretary in Broken Hill, serving with the Clerks’ Union for 23 years from 1977. In 1994 she was elected to the Barrier Industrial Council (BIC) executive. Heather retired in 2001.

A member of the Barkandji people, Muriel Riley is an artist and resident of Broken Hill.

A member of the Barkandji people, Fiona Bates is an artist, tour guide, and member of the Broken Hill Aboriginal Justice Group.

Pam Lord moved to Thackaringa Station in outback New South Wales with her husband John in 1948. Conducting regular hospital visits since 1965, she has offered more than forty years of continuous service to the Flying Doctors auxiliary in Broken Hill.

Margot White was born and raised in Broken Hill, New South Wales, where she worked as a comptometrist and as a clerk. Margot is a dedicated member of the Broken Hill Family History Group and does other voluntary work in the community.

Christine Landorf is an architect and academic who grew up in Broken Hill. With David Manfredi, she designed the Visitors’ Centre there and three of her students – Angus Barron, Steve Kelly and Dario Palumbo – designed the Broken Hill Miners’ Memorial. Together, the Memorial and the Visitors’ Centre received the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ Walter Burley Griffin Award for Urban Design.